Definition of metrics

Page views: Displays the number of times a variable was defined or persisted across all standard page view calls within the given date range. Does not include custom links.

Instances: Shows the number of times a given variable was defined in any image request, including standard page view and custom link calls. Does not include persisted values.

Occurrences: Counts the number times a variable was defined or persisted across both standard page view and custom link calls.

Differences in traffic reporting

The following comparison only applies to traffic variables, such as Props.

Page views or higher than instances or occurrences: Page views are never higher than instances or occurrences. All page views are also tracked as both an instance and an occurrence. If no custom link hits are involved, these three metrics match.

Instances or occurrences higher than page views: The only way for this comparison to occur is if traffic variables are defined in linkTrackVars. Page views only track standard page view calls while instances and occurrences also include custom link calls.

Differences in conversion reporting

The following comparison only applies to conversion variables, such as eVars.

All capabilities of Adobe Analytics follow this trend:

Occurrences (Tracks persistent values in all hit types)

are greater than or equal to...

Page Views (Tracks persistent values for standard page view calls)

which are greater than or equal to...

Instances (Tracks the number of times a variable was defined in all hit types)

The only exception to the above trend is the unlikely possibility for Instances to be higher than Page Views. Custom link image requests that contain the conversion variable can outweigh the number of standard page views that contain the variable's persisted value.